turkeys and chickens

[alexk1980]

How close can you keep them together without fear of disease? I have an area about 12x20 and and to half that to keep 2 turkeys

 

[LarryPQ]

Turkeys can get blackhead(?) disease from chickens, but that assumes you have blackhead in your chicken flock. If you really wanted to prevent issues, you would need the pens with significant distance between them.

 

[Jocasta]

The parasite that causes blackhead can live in chicken worm (caecal worm) eggs for up to four years so ideally, you'd want to avoid any land that chickens have inhabited over the last four years. There should be a divide between pens wide enough to ensure that no wind transmission of egg containing dust can make it into the turkey pen, IF you don't regularly worm your chickens (if they are wormed every twelve weeks, this won't be an issue).

Depending on how organic you want to raise your birds, you can buy feed that has a blackhead preventative in the turkey feed that may be worth investigating (not sure how efficient it is as I have no personal experience) and if you are wanting to use land previously inhabited by chickens, theoretically you can dust the ground with quicklime.

Having said all that, as a very lovely BYC member reminded me a few days ago, this is only actually an issue, as the pp'er has said, IF your chickens have ingested the blackhead parasite in the first place and it's not THAT likely. The best bet would be to contact your local environmental office and enquire as to whether or not you have any local incidence of blackhead. Chances are, the birds will be fine and there are certainly plenty of members on here who cohabit chickens and turkeys with no issues.

I was panicking as I keep chickens and have just ordered Turkey Eggs to hatch and stumbled across this blackhead issue myself. A little research and a call into my Environmental Health office (not to mention a lovely BYC member) have made me feel much better. I think I'm still going to dust the ground with quicklime, just for added reassurance but I'm sure all will be fine